UV Letters

If my college experience was about any one thing in particular, it was an exploration of a decaying gothic parkland. Someone at some point had spent a lot of money on the place, but clearly not in the past 30 years. The buildings onto which the architects had originally poured sulfuric acid...

As we arrive at the end of a challenging 2011, it comes as no surprise that the Oxford English Dictionary has chosen squeezed middle as word of the year. This phrase originated in the UK to describe the economic circumstances of ordinary people caught between stagnant...

Recent headlines from higher education remind us that many public officials don't understand how for-profit universities can be trusted to provide a quality education because their sole motivation is to maximize profits. The fact that we rely on...

Imagine that the U.S. government imposed a new health care regulation requiring that patients presenting with certain symptoms spend a minimum length of time in treatment in order for the service to qualify for reimbursement via Medicare or Medicaid.Looking up from the bottom...

"No one in the United States tries to figure out what a great university is; they just look at the Ivy League. It's very important to have great institutions: they define success."
- Andreas Schleicher, Head of OECD's education division

Visiting a university in the UK last week, we stumbled upon this description in the regional guidebook found in the hotel room:
"Another great local attraction is Southwell Workhouse, which is the most complete workhouse...

Here are two interesting and seemingly unrelated developments since our last newsletter:
1) A front page story in the New York Times on how the rise in technology in education is not having any discernible impact on student learning...